Contents

Njawé was born in Babouantou, Cameroon, on 4 March 1957. As a child, he sold newspapers in the street[1] before going on to work for the state-owned newspapers La Gazette and the daily Douala Express.[2] In 1979, at the age of 22, he founded the nation's first independent newspaper, Le Messager.[3]

The paper soon became known for its criticism of long-time President Paul Biya, and it drew a strong government response. Njawé was arrested for the first time in 1981, and would go on to be arrested about 125 more times before his death.[1] In 1990, Le Messager was briefly seized by the government for its reporting on a riot.[1] In 1990, Njawé's publishing of an "open letter" to Biya led to another arrest.[4]

The paper was banned in 1992, forcing Njawé into a short exile in Benin, where he continued to publish.[1] Njawé returned to the country in February 1993 despite being accused by the government of drug dealing, counterfeiting, and sedition; he founded the Cameroon Organization for Press Freedom one month later.[2] In 1996, he was imprisoned on charges of "insulting the president and members of the National Assembly".[1]

In 1998, Njawé was sentenced to two years in prison when Le Messager ran an article suggesting that Biya had a heart condition. The sentence for running this article was later reduced, and due to pressures from Human Rights groups, Njawé was pardoned after almost a year in prison. His wife had miscarried in the interim, reportedly due to mistreatment by prison guards.[5] Njawé wrote a book about his prison experience titled Bloc-notes d'un Bagnard ("Notebooks of a Convict"), which he published in 1998.[1]

Njawé's wife Jane was killed in a car accident in September 2002, causing him to found an organisation calling for safer road conditions in Cameroon.[6] He had eight children.[1]

Shortly before his own death in a car accident, Njawé told an interviewer that "A word can be more powerful than a weapon and I believe that with the word... we can build a better world and make happier people. So, why give up while duty still calls? No one will silence me, except The Lord, before I achieve what I consider as a mission in my native country, in Africa and, why not, in the world."[3]

On 12 July 2010, Njawé was killed when a lorry struck a car in which he was riding in Chesapeake, Virginia, US. Njawé had travelled to the city attend a meeting of the Cameroon Diaspora for Change.[6]

The member organisations of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange memorialised him as a "torchbearer for press freedom".[3]Reporters Without Borders stated that Njawé "fought every press freedom struggle. We will not forget, for example that he joined us on a visit to Sarajevo, in 1992, to offer support to 'Oslobodenje', the only newspaper that continued to come out during the war in Yugoslavia."[3]